[MD] Intellectual activity

[Platt Holden]

Alice,

[Alice]
> For me style is a large part of the message. How can I take the message
> seriously when the presentation is awkwardly excecuted? When a person
> writes, they must imagine their audience. When I read Rand, I got the
> message that she thought that if she shoved her message often enough
> down the reader's throat, he would swallow it and certainly never raise
> any objections. It was such a done deal..

[Platt]
For me style is irrelevant to substance.

[Alice]
> Life bears no resemblance to Rand's world or at least no life I have
> ever experienced does. But then, she's Russian.

[Platt]
You and I live in two different worlds. Whether its the unmitigated 
evil in the past of Joe Stalin, currently of Bin Laden, or of the  
everyday common criminal, life and liberty are under constant threat. 
On the side of the angels are the police and military who fight the 
threat every hour of every day. Your welfare, happiness and very life 
depend on their being there for you.

When you read Lila, you will understand the perpetual conflict between 
the forces of biology and society and the devastation wrought when 
intellectuals take biology's side in that conflict. For Rand, Crichton 
and Pirsig, the presence of evil is real.

To win the battle against evil, the first step is to acknowledge its 
existence. If that takes "shoving the message down the reader's 
throats," I'm all for it. As you suggest, maybe there are better ways 
to do that, although when people are in denial it often takes a no-
holds-barred intervention to bring them to their senses.

Platt





Platt